ambassador susan rice. the fact is, secretary hillary clinton was the most prominent woman in the president's ka cabinet. she is being replaced by a man, senator kerry. as of now, there are fewer women in the mix. >> brianna, thanks very much. kate bolduan is here with more. what are you hearing about the timing? >> the timing in terms of the confirmation hearing, i'm told that the armed services committee hopes to consider hagel's nomination by the end of this month but simply schedulewise, it could be difficult because the senate isn't in session this week or next and when senators do return, it's customary for the nominee to have a period of time, a week, a couple weeks to meet with can committee members before and key senators before confirmation hearings begin. for more on a little bit of this, we'll go to tom foreman with a sense of what we can expect when those hearings are under way. tom, you're in a place that no one gets to go. >> that's right. here in our virtual center, we're going to talk about